Welcome to Switched On, your whistle-stop tour around the big news stories breaking in digital communications this month. Forward this email to a friend

iPlayer man The BBC's iPlayer has been the broadcast innovation of the year and viewing figures have been astonishingly high - now around 700,000 people a day - and are continuing to grow. And now, thanks to some numbers produced by Dipstick Research we have a good idea of what the average user looks like. Already dubbed 'iPlayer man' the research paints a picture of the typical user of the online catch-up TV service who is male, aged about 40, in a full time job, with a partner but no children. More detail emerges as to how iPlayer is accessed by our new friend, usually on his desktop PC, alone, though occasionally his partner will watch with him. Later on in his viewing experience - and this is interesting in terms of long term behavioural change - iPlayer man will sometimes defer watching the programme on linear TV in the knowledge that it will later appear on the iPlayer. Three points of note here. Firstly, as Anthony Rose, Head of Digital Media at the BBC emphasised,  the iPlayer reaches a much broader cross section of the population than just this demographic with only 25 per cent of viewing being done within the 35-44 age range. This leaves a long tail of different age ranges exploring and enjoying iPlayer content. Secondly only 5 per cent of users connect their TV to a computer to watch iPlayer content which must offer a significant opportunity for somebody with an elegant solution to this problem.  Finally, and perhaps most contentiously as the next generation broadband debate rumbles on, is the research's finding that iPlayer man has not experienced any problems with his ISP - contrary to the picture painted by Tiscali and others earlier this year.

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The broadband arms race Speaking of which, in last month's 'Switched On' we covered BT's announcement of their intended roll out of a £1.5 billion programme of fibre based, super-fast broadband to up to 10 million UK homes by 2012. This would see BT delivering a range of services with top speeds of up to 100 Mb/s with the potential for speeds of more than 1,000 Mb/s in the future. In the UK's hugely competitive broadband market this couldn't pass off without comment from a rival and sure enough the announcement provoked a response from major competitor Virgin Media whose CEO Neil Berkett said that their subscribers may be offered broadband speeds of up to 200Mb per second within four years - 40 times faster than the current average speed of UK broadband. "BT are talking about 40Mb in 2012; we have got 50Mb now," he said, adding: "And by 2012 we would have the technical capability of delivering up to 200Mb-per-second. We are leading next generation access in this country." Speed is important in this debate, not least because it promises to deliver efficiencies and time savings to businesses and consumers, but expect to see comments about reliability and latency of particular networks get plenty of prominence soon.

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The numbers game The if, how, and when of next generation broadband deployment will be hugely influenced by the decisions that the regulator Ofcom makes. However, this month saw them in their role as general bellwether for the communications industry as they published their annual communications market report which has a look at some key market trends occurring in the UK. The report is an absolute treasure-trove of stats that reflects a dynamic and extremely competitive set of markets but here we'll just pick two out for consideration. Firstly, good news for consumers whose real monthly household spend on communications services fell for the third year to £93.48, down 1.8 per cent on 2006, driven by a 6 per cent drop in fixed telecoms spend and a 4 per cent drop in broadband spend. Secondly, and significantly for the consumer electronics industry and policy makers, is the finding that although nearly three-quarters of consumers (72 per cent) say that they care about the environment and take it into account in their personal lives, only 39 per cent say that they compare environmentally-friendly aspects when purchasing communications devices. Clearly there's still a long way to go on that front.

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Slow change As there is on a host of other issues including internet TV, which according to a Deloitte report, has had negligible impact on British viewing habits. The report found that just 4 per cent of the UK population consider it 'very important' to be able to receive TV via the internet, while 47 per cent still regard it as not important at all. Traditional viewing still seems to be the order of the day for many consumers. Contrast that with the view of many of those inside the TV industry who perceive the innovations and changes in viewing behaviour as a looming and unavoidable threat. The executives surveyed predicted a growing appetite for internet TV, with 47 per cent believing that by 2010 internet TV will be embraced by the majority of viewers. They also saw the internet as commercial broadcasters' greatest threat in 2008 with 69 per cent of executives fearing the movement of advertising revenue away from television to online.

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What next? And finally, staying on the subject of crystal ball gazing, is a fascinating new book out in September that attempts to predict what life might be like in 50 years time. Author and acknowledged 'futurologist' Richard Watson makes some bold forecasts, some of which have direct relevance to the TV and entertainment industries. Lots to ponder here including his assertions that everything from walls and tabletops to cereal packets and clothes will turn into video screens and interactive information displays, as well as his belief that every book ever written will be available from vending machines and the customer will be able to choose text style, cover design and paper weight to fully customize it to their preferences. Most shocking though is his prediction that Google will be dead by 2049. Who'd have thought it?

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